Ep 86 | Kim Needs a Sabbatical

Kim Strobel 00:10

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode, I need to start out by giving some news that has been a really difficult decision for me, I have decided that I'm going to take a sabbatical after this podcast episode from podcasting, I started in 2018, I have been doing this now for four years, we've put out 60, I think this is the 67th episode. And to be honest with you, I do a lot of content driven creation, whether I'm recording this podcast episode, and then sending it to the videographer, then I'm writing the show notes. We're creating the social images, the audio clips, but that's just one type of content creation. I'm also in my she finds joy Facebook group posting and engaging with the 4000 Plus members in that group. I'm creating videos for our online courses, I'm creating two emails a week that I have to write and generate, and we put into our email platform. I'm writing blog post, it has just become a lot, and And so
this episode is going to be short. But I want to explain why I'm doing this, even though I feel like I'm really letting down my listeners. And it's been a decision that I've contemplated for six months as my assistant Jessa knows, because it's hard to let go of things, even if it's temporary, which I think this would be temporary, but I'm not positive, I just know I need a break. And I just you know, I went to my analytics and I saw how many of you were downloading the episodes each week. And I felt such a sense of appreciation for people who are taking the time to listen, who are receiving tidbits, maybe little ways that they can be more accepting of themselves or less judgmental of themselves, or little happiness habits that help us really feel good in our life a lot of the time. And so that's why this has been a really hard
decision for me. But I think that it's time for me to make some really hard decisions. Because when you start to feel your energy wane towards certain projects, or certain shoulds that you have in your life, because Don't you think that we all have a lot of shoulds like, You should do this with your kids, you should be this kind of parent, you should be this kind of daughter, you should do these kinds of things with your, you know, you should give your time to this parent, you shouldn't be this kind of friend, you should be a better listener. We have all these shoulds in our life. And I think the shoulds wear us down. And for me the shoulds are making me feel depleted. And so I've decided to follow some of my own advice and try to simplify my work life a little bit more. Even if that means that at times I might feel like I'm letting other people down.
Now, there are certain parts of my business that oh my gosh, I will continue to speak on stages, we will continue to offer workshops and online courses and virtual courses. It's just that when it comes to some of the social media types of things, or this podcast or content creation, I'm just having to make some decisions about which ones I currently want to keep and which ones at times just leave me feeling a little depleted and I know like one of the things right now that's that I'm fighting with myself in my head is that darn Instagram because I was told that if you let your Instagram story die, okay, so which means you just leave Let it go. And there's nothing up for, however, an hour or 24 hours, that you lose your complete algorithm. And so I have felt all this pressure to not let my Instagram Stories expire, because I've been worried about losing my algorithm. And that's something else. I don't have a story up right now I can tell that I'm
fighting it. But I'm just tired of my brain constantly thinking, what next? Do you need to do, Kim? Where else do you need to show up? Kim? What else do you need to create? What else do you need to produce? What else do you need to put out there? And so this is where I am. And, you know, I'm currently recording this at the end of September. And as many of you know, I took 23 flights in the month of August. I was in multiple states, some states, I think I was in Texas four times, I was in Montana, and New York, Michigan, Maryland, Maine, New Jersey, Philadelphia. I was just everywhere. And I loved it. And I love the energy of being out there and being on the stages and really being able to inspire others. And I told myself, if I get through when I get through August that I was going to really step away from my work ethic in my office when I'm not out on stages, and that I was really going to take the month of September to rest.
And so that is what I've been doing. I've been working about four hours a day. I just I'm binge watching good trouble. By the way, if you're not watching good trouble on Hulu, I love it. It's about these two girls who graduated their sisters and they graduated college once a software engineer and one's an attorney and they moved to LA and they live in this like community apartment building. I don't know it's almost like current diversion of friends. The sitcom from like the 90s I think it was, so I'm binge watching. Good trouble. I'm taking naps almost daily. Actually, I think my husband is so not used to seeing this version of Kim that yesterday after lunch, I was like, Hey, I'm gonna gonna go to bed and take a nap. And he said, Are you? Are you feeling okay? Like, yep, I'm just tired. And so what I'm doing is I've been fighting myself this month, because I feel guilty for taking time to rest. Like, it's 1225 right now. And after I get done with this episode, I'm going to eat lunch. And then I'm going to go sit on the couch, and I'm going to watch good trouble. And then I might even take a nap. And you know how we tend to always say this in my trainings. But we're like hardwired most of us are hardwired to do do do do like we're to do to achieve to succeed like to stay busy. And we've learned to wear our exhaustion as like a badge of honor, right? Like, oh, you know, I did this today. And I got this done. And I worked my ass off over here. And I was like a supermom, and I cook these meals, and I did the laundry. And I worked really hard in my job. And I didn't leave until like 30 minutes later. And we were these. We were our exhaustion as a badge of honor, which means we believe that we've been a good person only if we feel that we've completely depleted ourselves. And I think that for me, you know, we have to understand that rest, and giving ourselves time to rest. That is a right. You have a right to rest. It's not a reward. It's not something that you earn after you've done 722,000 things. And so even though I have felt guilty, even feel guilty, like when I tell my husband, I'm gonna go take a nap. I feel guilty like
he thinks I'm some kind of lazy, even though he saw me work my butt off in August. It's like, Oh, does he think I'm lazy? I slept till 830 this morning. I'm always up at like six or so. And I slept till 830 And I got out of bed and my inner critic was like, Oh my God, what's happening to you? Are you going into depression? Like, maybe this whole like taking the month of September and relaxing and only working four hours a day like this is you know, this is not this is not good for you? Are you going downhill? So, you know, it's interesting to see that when we've operated a certain way for so long, that that inner critic will start to try to put us back in our place, but I'm really really, really proud that I have felt the uncomfortable feelings of feeling lazy feeling like I should be doing more in my business, feeling guilty for knowing that I'm going to take a
sabbatical for a while from this podcast. And what I'm doing is allowing myself to have those
feelings and then I'm still taking the actions that I feel like I need, which is to take the month of September and work four hour work days and to binge watch good trouble and to take naps and to make some hard decisions in my business so that I'm not creating, creating and creating all of the time. So even though I have really been hesitating to record this episode, I also hope that for any of you listening, who feel like you have too many shoulds in your life, or you feel like you must exhaust yourself in order to feel like a valuable and worthy human being. I hope that maybe just me talking about how this has affected my life and bringing a little bit of understanding and compassion to it might give you the courage to move yourself into some
uncomfortableness, maybe simplify pieces of your life and learn that we are not how much we produce in a day. We are not how much we do or achieve that we have value just because we're human beings. And so here's to me, signing off for at least a little while in I don't know, I don't know if this is going to be temporary or permanent. I hope that all of you stay connected to me. Maybe in other forms. Again, I know I'm reevaluating some of my social media too, but everything else will be running on Kim Strobel Inc, and struggle education, we're still going to be firing away. It's just my need to create more space in my life to go inward and be with myself more than being externalized all of the time. So I hope you wish me luck and I also want you to know that I will always be rooting for you.